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New data shows that cybercriminals started this year off with a massive effort using new techniques and increased levels of attack sophistication. According to cybersecurity vendor Vade’s Q1 2023 Phishing and Malware Report, the number of phishing attacks in Q1 this year reached the highest total since 2018. While January represented the lion’s share of Q1 phishing volume (approximately 87%), Vade detected over 562 million phishing emails.

At a time when cyber attacks are achieving success in varying degrees and IT pros are keeping quiet about resulting breaches, there is one specific type of attack that has them most worried. Despite us all working in IT at a time where the sharing of threat data is at its highest, there is still the notion that organizations don’t want the public finding out about data breaches for fear of the repercussions to the company’s revenue and reputation.

The nature of an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) engine such as ChatGPT provides its users with an ability to use and misuse, potentially empowering both security teams and threat actors alike. I’ve previously covered examples of how ChatGPT and other AI engines like it can be used to craft believable business-related phishing emails, malicious code, and more for the threat actor.

In an interesting twist, new data hints that organizations with cyber insurance may be relying on it too much, instead of shoring up security to ensure attacks never succeed. Cyber insurance should be seen as an absolute last resort and shouldn’t be seen as a sure thing (in terms of a claim payout).

A selection of this week’s more interesting vulnerability disclosures and cyber security news. For a daily selection see our twitter feed at #ionCube24. This news could so easily have been tragic. When flight, vehicle or machinery updates are required for safety critical applications, yeah, do them please.